Lando Norris Age: Lando Norris, at 17 years old, was hired as McLaren’s test and reserve driver when the company needed a driver. After putting up a strong showing for the team during testing at the Hungaroring in 2017, he was promoted to take over for the team’s departing driver, 2009 world champion Jenson Button.
Button and Norris both had their first karting experience at the Clay Pigeon kart circuit. Norris and his elder brother Oliver (10), who is seven years older than Norris, started participating in karting events shortly after.
The Norris brothers had the support of their father, Adam Norris, who worked as a director at financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown before going on to establish his own investing corporation. In 2016, he was believed to be worth more than £200 million, according to estimates.
Under the urging of his father, Lando Norris raced in both the KF and Rotax karting divisions at one point in order to expand his experience and get a better understanding of the many types of equipment and tires available. Lando was able to produce an amazing run of championships as a result of his rigorous training regimen.
With one round remaining in the 2013 WSK Euro series, he had secured victory. Despite missing out on the European KF championship the following year, he made up for a lost time in 2014 by capturing the global KF championship.
Norris made his motor racing debut in the Ginetta Junior Championship, which is a support series to the British Touring Car Championship, in 2014. He finished second in the championship. He finished third in the championship, having won four races and taking home the Rookie Cup in his first season. Norris has signed a contract with Carlin Motorsport to compete in the newly-established MSA Formula Championship in 2015. (now known as the F4 British Championship).
Norris finished the season with eight victories, ten pole positions, and a total of fourteen podium finishes to win the title ahead of Ricky Collard and Colton Herta. He also had sporadic outings with Mücke Motorsport in the ADAC and Italian Formula 4 championships, where he finished on the podium six times out of eight starts in the former.
Norris went to New Zealand in January 2016 to participate in the Toyota Racing Series with the M2 Competition squad, which won the championship. He won six races, including the New Zealand Grand Prix, and went on to win the title, finishing ahead of Jehan Daruvala, who finished second. In the following year, Norris returned to Europe and competed in the Formula Renault 2.0 category with Josef Kaufmann Racing, where he competed in both the Eurocup and the Northern European Cup. He was victorious in both series, winning a total of eleven races in the former and claiming ten straight pole positions in the latter.
Meanwhile, Norris competed in the BRDC British Formula 3 Championship, where he finished fourth overall after winning four races out of a total of eleven races. A guest appearance in the last round of the European Formula 3 Championship held at the Hockenheimring in October, in preparation for the Macau Grand Prix in November, was his first participation in the series. After qualifying tenth in Macau, Norris crashed out of the qualification race after just the first lap and was therefore eliminated from the competition. In the main race, he improved from 27th on the starting grid to 11th at the end of the race.